A Present from long, long ago

My wife brought it home several years ago from a library used book sale in Ohio. "The Detroit Tigers" by Fred Lieb, copyright 1946. I was thrilled when she first gave it to me, but once I started trying to wade through the turgid prose of that era, I quickly lost my enthusiasm.

Using terms of affection like "The Jungeliers" threw me for a loop, and his style of telling the story of a ball game is quite a bit different that what we read today. Instead of the "inverted pyramid" style we read in the Free Fress today; "The Tiger bullpen had another blowout last night, giving up three runs in the eight, and losing the game 7-6." Lieb might write "It was dark and blustery as the Jungeliers took the field for morning batting practice yesterday..."

But Lieb does excel at giving some background, like the fueds between Cobb and Crawford and some of the other players. (Since Cobb was still alive and no doubt packing a pistol when the book was written, one wonders what reaction Lieb got from him.)


Lieb revels in the Tigers' 1945 World Series victory in closing the book with "Frank Navin must be happy; his Tigers are the World's Cahmpions and Briggs Stadium in Detroit is one of the few big-league parks where they still play all their games under the sun."

You can almost here him singing "and the home of the the braaave!"

All in all, I'm glad my bride gave it to me, and if you're interested, you can usually find it on E-Bay for $12-$50 depending on it's condition, first edition, second edition or paperback reprint. (No, my copy is not for sale.)